


This is not a Fairytale.

by goodisrelative



Category: Necessary Roughness
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-03
Updated: 2011-09-03
Packaged: 2017-10-23 09:58:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/249067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodisrelative/pseuds/goodisrelative
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>“She’s an impact player.”  The words still echo through his mind days after speaking them. </em></p>
            </blockquote>





	This is not a Fairytale.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first story I’ve written in a very long time. These characters are not my normal ones either… usually I am hit from the beginning with who I prefer and such in a show. This pairing was 10 episodes into the season before I even _saw_ it! But rewatching the old makes me giddy because Nico has always been my favorite character. And the title of this makes me laugh inside because Nico – played by Scott Cohen – was Wolf in 10th Kingdom, so of course once upon a time there _were_ fairytales! :-)

_**Fan Fiction: This is not a Fairytale. PG Necessary Roughness**_  
 _Title:_ This is not a Fairytale.  
 _Author:_ [](http://goodisrelative.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**goodisrelative**](http://goodisrelative.dreamwidth.org/)  
 _Rating:_ PG  
 _Spoilers:_ through S1 Ep 10 _A Wing and A Prayer_  
 _Character/Pairing:_ Nico Careles, Dani Santino, Matt Donnally, Ray Santino, JD Aldridge; a touch of Careles/Santino  
Summary: _“She’s an impact player.” The words still echo through his mind days after speaking them._

 _Author's note:_ This is the first story I’ve written in a very long time. These characters are not my normal ones either… usually I am hit from the beginning with who I prefer and such in a show. This pairing was 10 episodes into the season before I even _saw_ it! But rewatching the old makes me giddy because Nico has always been my favorite character. And the title of this makes me laugh inside because Nico – played by Scott Cohen – was Wolf in 10th Kingdom, so of course once upon a time there _were_ fairytales! :-)  
The title is a line from _Angel of the Cross_ by Russell Crowe and Allan Doyle.  
Thanks to [](http://www.dreamwidth.org/profile?user=bets_cyn)[**bets_cyn**](http://www.dreamwidth.org/profile?user=bets_cyn).

* * *

  


  
“She’s an impact player.” The words still echo through his mind days after speaking them.

Nico had meant what he said to JD. Doctor Santino always made an impact – in a situation, in a person. When she’d first joined the team, he hadn’t trusted her – she hadn’t earned it yet and the reasons she came onto the team were more than suspect. But then she hadn’t backed down on her rules about her patients – not to him, not to Donnally, not to Coach, and even later not to Marshal Pittman. That alone – standing up to him and holding that line – had earned her his respect.

He watched her from behind his dark shades. He was always watching her. _You couldn’t not watch her._ She had this power to draw everyone’s attention to her the moment she got near. She may be tiny, but she was a force to reckon with.

Nico smiled, he _liked_ reckoning with her. Doctor Santino didn’t accept no; didn’t accept she couldn’t help everyone. Once she started something, she refused to back down … even if she was in danger from her client’s stupidity. _Or his own_ , he added darkly. He’d put her in danger without knowing he was. After Jason, he’d been much more careful about any referral to her.

Doctor Santino especially didn’t like accepting his vague answers. He liked flustering her. He actually took pleasure in it. His comments were geared to get a reaction from her. There were carefully chosen words and strategic pauses that heightened her annoyance and his amusement. _Maybe too much of the time._ It was beginning to be more than a game … it was beginning to be a need.

Take joining her and Aldridge for a drink Tuesday night. He loved watching her squirm. And her face after he mentioned his failed marriage had been well worth the daggers her eyes had been throwing at him all evening.

But then she’d ruined his fun the following day when she’d questioned why it had taken her weeks to learn Pittsburgh and he’d told Aldridge about his failed marriage in minutes. There had been real hurt in her eyes, and that had truly bothered him. Too many lately had hurt her intentionally and he hadn’t meant to join that crowd, even unintentionally.

Her husband was an ass or in her words a jackass. Nico had more choice words to describe him, but he locked them down even in his head for fear one day they would escape into the air in her company. The man – and that was being unkind to the male species – cheated on her more times than she had any idea about and he’d still expected her to come back. Nico had wanted to do more than just buy off that stupid PI and scare Ray straight. If it had been up to Nico, he’d have strangled the little jackass and enjoyed watching him gasp. What Ray had done was inexcusable in Nico’s eyes; Doctor Santino was too good a woman to hurt in such a way. And then the situations with spousal support and the visitation rights – they’d been geared to simply hammer the hurt home. There was no other point to them. It was only years of patience and control that kept the man alive at that point.

Donnally hadn’t set out to hurt Doctor Santino – but he had even as Nico had to wonder if the idiot even realized it. Nico knew Santino’d been the one to put up the wall of professionalism once she was working for the Hawks, but that didn’t mean Donnally had any right to hurt her by switching to Radcliffe without telling her. Nico worked with Donnally long enough to suspect that the man didn’t even register that he’d hurt the Doctor – Donnally was too concerned about himself, especially when it came to women.

And then there was JD Aldridge. The guy was smart and really did seem to care for her, but he wasn’t someone who could fit into her life. More importantly, Aldridge wasn’t someone who was willing to fit into her life. The travel and research was in his blood too much. So he was leaving her, too, and causing yet another crack to form in her heart.

Nico understood his transgression was small compared to the others and likely she didn’t even see it as one, but he did and never wanted there to be any on his part. She had enough to deal with in her life – kids adjusting to divorce, her gambling mother, TK who was enough for a lifetime – he didn’t want to be another person who added to everything else she dealt with on a moment-to-moment basis.

He was going to have to take even more care with his interactions with Santino. She was becoming too important to him and she was too far inside his walls to force her out. He was beyond the point of thinking he could evict her from his mind.  



End file.
